CLEAR 4-PILLAR SERVICE ARCHITECTURE

Security Engineering Mapped to Your Business Threat Surface

We organize offensive and defensive security into four clear practice pillars—eliminating overlap so technology leaders can scope the exact coverage required across Infrastructure & Adversary Simulation, Application & Code Security, Cloud Security, and AI Red Teaming.

01. Infrastructure & Adversary Sim 02. Application & Code Security 03. Cloud Security 04. AI Security Sample Report (CVSS v4.0)

Stage 01 // Business Threat Scoping

Crown-jewel identification across People, Process, Data, and Technology—tailoring attack scenarios to your industry and threat profile.

Stage 02 // Recon & Foothold

External attack-surface mapping, assumed-breach entry simulation, and manual + automated vulnerability discovery without operational disruption.

Stage 03 // Privilege & Lateral Chain

Controlled privilege escalation, lateral movement, defense evasion, and business-logic abuse to prove real-world impact under CVSS v4.0.

Stage 04 // Governance & Retest

Executive risk brief, engineering remediation walkthrough, SOC detection tuning, and complimentary verification retesting under mutual NDA.

PILLAR 01

Infrastructure & Adversary Simulation

Comprehensive network testing, device hardening, and full-spectrum Red, Blue, and Purple Team exercises.

1.1 Network Penetration Testing (External & Internal)

Goal-oriented exploitation across internet-facing perimeters, internal VLANs, Active Directory, and segmented corporate networks.
PTES • NIST SP 800-115

Scope & Attack Surface

  • External public IPs, VPN gateways, mail relays, and edge load balancers
  • Internal corporate subnets, Active Directory forests, and domain controllers
  • SMB/Kerberos authentication, internal DNS, and lateral movement paths
  • Database listeners, management interfaces, and legacy protocol exposure

Testing Approach

  • Attack-surface reconnaissance and live service enumeration
  • Manual exploit chaining across weak credentials, misconfigured ACLs, and unpatched services
  • Controlled domain privilege escalation with strict non-disruptive guardrails
  • Clear proof-of-concept attack path documentation

Business Outcome

Demonstrates exactly how an external or insider threat actor can pivot to critical business servers, giving infrastructure teams a prioritized remediation sequence.

1.2 Enterprise Vulnerability Assessment (VA)

Systematic discovery, false-positive triage, and risk-ranked remediation tracking across servers, endpoints, and network assets.
ISO 27001 • SOC 2 • PCI-DSS

Scope & Attack Surface

  • Production and staging server fleets (Windows, Linux, Unix)
  • Corporate endpoints, container hosts, and hypervisor layers
  • SSL/TLS cipher suites, certificate hygiene, and exposed network services
  • Authenticated patch-level and missing security update verification

Testing Approach

  • Credentialed and unauthenticated deep vulnerability scanning
  • Principal-led manual validation to strip out scanner false positives
  • Risk scoring calibrated to asset criticality and active threat intelligence
  • Structured patch matrix for rapid IT operations execution

Business Outcome

Establishes a repeatable vulnerability management baseline, satisfies continuous compliance mandates, and eliminates known CVE exposure across your estate.

1.3 Network & Security Device Configuration Review

Deep baseline hardening audits against CIS Benchmarks and vendor security best practices for core network infrastructure.
CIS BENCHMARKS • ZERO-TRUST

Scope & Attack Surface

  • Next-Gen Firewalls (Palo Alto, Fortinet, Cisco, Check Point) & WAF rulebases
  • Core routers, Layer 2/3 switches, VLAN segmentation, and NAC policies
  • VPN concentrators, proxy appliances, and bastion jump hosts
  • Hardened OS baselines (RHEL, Ubuntu, Windows Server)

Testing Approach

  • Offline configuration export review against CIS Level 1 & Level 2 Benchmarks
  • Firewall rulebase audit for overly permissive any-any rules and shadow policies
  • Verification of management plane isolation, SNMPv3, AAA/TACACS+, and syslog forwarding
  • Actionable CLI/policy hardening snippets for every gap identified

Business Outcome

Closes silent architectural drift in firewalls and switches, enforces strict network micro-segmentation, and hardens infrastructure against lateral ransomware spread.

1.4 Adversary Simulation: Red, Blue & Purple Team Exercises

360° intelligence-driven simulations evaluating People, Process, Data, and Technology under realistic attack conditions.
MITRE ATT&CK • ASSUMED BREACH

Rather than treating Red, Blue, and Purple Teaming as disconnected services, ZenithCrypt delivers unified Adversary Simulation tailored to your defensive maturity—covering external intrusion, assumed-breach lateral movement, and targeted phishing/vishing scenarios:

1.4.1 Red Team Assessment (Covert Emulation)

Objective-driven, unannounced adversary simulation replicating real-world threat actors—combining external perimeter exploitation, assumed-breach internal pivoting, and controlled social engineering (phishing/vishing) to reach crown-jewel assets while evading EDR/WAF controls.

1.4.2 Blue Team Assessment (Defensive Readiness)

Comprehensive evaluation of your SOC visibility, SIEM log ingestion, EDR/XDR telemetry, alert triage workflows, and incident containment playbooks—identifying blind spots where attacker reconnaissance, persistence, or exfiltration go unnoticed.

1.4.3 Purple Team Exercise (Collaborative Tuning)

Live, transparent attack-and-detect workshops where offensive TTPs (mapped to MITRE ATT&CK) are executed alongside your defenders in real time to build, validate, and fine-tune high-fidelity SIEM/EDR detection rules.

MITRE ATT&CK External & Assumed Breach Phishing & Vishing Campaigns MTTD / MTTR Optimization
PILLAR 02

Application & Code Security

End-to-end source code and dynamic runtime testing across web applications, mobile apps, and API ecosystems.

2.1 Web Application Penetration Testing

Grey-box and black-box manual testing targeting authentication, RBAC boundaries, business logic, and injection vectors.
OWASP WSTG V4.2 • ASVS L2

Scope & Attack Surface

  • SaaS platforms, customer/vendor portals, and administrative control panels
  • SAML/OIDC SSO flows, session cookies, CSRF, and CORS policies
  • Financial workflows (invoicing, budgets, approvals, payment files)
  • File upload parsers, real-time WebSockets (SignalR/Socket.IO), and client-side state

Testing Approach

  • Full coverage of OWASP WSTG test cases across multiple privilege roles
  • Deep business logic abuse: negative currency values, timestamp forgery, workflow bypass
  • Testing for SQL/NoSQL injection, Stored/DOM XSS, SSRF, XXE, SSTI, and IDOR
  • Reproducible HTTP request/response evidence with CVSS v4.0 scoring

Business Outcome

Protects sensitive customer data and financial transaction integrity while providing an enterprise-ready attestation report for client security reviews.

2.2 Mobile Application Penetration Testing (iOS & Android)

Static binary reverse engineering and dynamic runtime instrumentation across mobile clients and backend APIs.
OWASP MASVS • MASTG

Scope & Attack Surface

  • Compiled Android (APK/AAB) and iOS (IPA) application binaries
  • Local storage (SQLite, SharedPreferences, Keychain, Keystore) & memory dumps
  • Certificate pinning, root/jailbreak detection, and biometric auth bypasses
  • Deep links, WebViews, IPC components, and mobile API endpoints

Testing Approach

  • Decompilation and static binary analysis for hardcoded keys and weak cryptography
  • Dynamic runtime hooking using Frida and Objection to bypass client-side controls
  • Traffic interception and API authorization testing under rogue client conditions
  • Remediation aligned directly to OWASP MASVS verification levels

Business Outcome

Prevents reverse engineering, session theft, and mobile payment fraud while satisfying fintech, banking, and app marketplace security requirements.

2.3 API Security Testing

Targeted authorization, schema, and cryptographic testing for REST, GraphQL, gRPC, and WebSocket APIs.
OWASP API TOP 10 (2023)

Scope & Attack Surface

  • REST, GraphQL, SOAP, and gRPC microservices & API gateways
  • OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, and JWT token validation pipelines
  • Multi-tenant object identifiers, pagination endpoints, and bulk exports
  • Rate limiting, webhook signature verification, and third-party ERP connectors

Testing Approach

  • Cross-user and cross-tenant BOLA/IDOR matrix testing across every route
  • Mass assignment (BOPLA) and unfiltered database object serialization audits
  • JWT attack testing (alg:none, weak HMAC secrets, kid/JWK injection)
  • OpenAPI/Swagger and GraphQL introspection fuzzing for hidden mutations

Business Outcome

Eliminates silent cross-tenant data leakage, unauthorized privilege escalation, and automated API scraping across your core SaaS and mobile backends.

2.4 Secure Code Review (SAST)

Hybrid manual + static source-to-sink code auditing to catch architectural and injection flaws before deployment.
CWE TOP 25 • OWASP ASVS

Scope & Attack Surface

  • Backend & frontend repositories (.NET, Node.js, Python, Java, Go, React)
  • Custom authentication, RBAC middleware, and cryptographic implementations
  • Database query builders, ORM serialization transforms, and file parsers
  • Hardcoded secrets, API keys, and CI/CD pipeline configurations

Testing Approach

  • Targeted manual code review paired with custom semantic static rules
  • Source-to-sink taint tracing from untrusted request inputs to sensitive sinks
  • 100% manual triage—developers never waste time on automated tool noise
  • Delivered with exact file paths, line numbers, and secure code diffs

Business Outcome

Shifts security left into your SDLC, remediates root-cause coding anti-patterns, and accelerates developer velocity with clear, copy-pasteable fixes.

PILLAR 03

Cloud Security (AWS • Azure • GCP)

Architectural design validation, live cloud infrastructure exploitation, and control-plane configuration hardening.

3.1 Cloud Secure Architecture Review

Holistic evaluation of multi-cloud topology, identity federation, network segmentation, and data protection designs.
AWS WELL-ARCHITECTED • ZERO TRUST

Scope & Attack Surface

  • Multi-account / subscription landing zones, VPCs, transit gateways, and private links
  • Enterprise identity federation (Entra ID, AWS IAM Identity Center, Okta, ADFS)
  • Data encryption at rest/in transit, KMS key hierarchies, and secrets management
  • Kubernetes (EKS/AKS/GKE) and serverless workload isolation patterns

Testing Approach

  • Architecture diagram and Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform/Bicep) review
  • Threat modeling of trust boundaries, blast-radius containment, and egress controls
  • Evaluation of centralized logging (CloudTrail, GuardDuty, Sentinel, Cloud Audit Logs)
  • Prioritized architectural blueprint aligned with SOC 2 and ISO 27001 controls

Business Outcome

Prevents costly cloud re-architecture by embedding least-privilege identity and network containment directly into your cloud foundation.

3.2 Cloud Infrastructure Penetration Testing

Simulated exploitation of cloud control planes, IAM privilege escalation paths, and exposed cloud workloads.
MITRE ATT&CK CLOUD MATRIX

Scope & Attack Surface

  • IAM roles, cross-account trust policies, service principals, and instance profiles
  • Amazon S3, Azure Blob, and GCS storage buckets & public snapshots
  • Instance Metadata Service (IMDSv1/v2) SSRF-to-credential theft paths
  • Kubernetes RBAC, pod escape vectors, and exposed ingress controllers

Testing Approach

  • External unauthenticated cloud asset and storage bucket enumeration
  • Assumed-compromise testing from a low-privileged IAM role or container
  • Chaining SSRF, misconfigured trust policies, and over-scoped permissions to admin
  • Non-destructive proof-of-concept demonstrating exact blast radius

Business Outcome

Uncovers toxic IAM permission combinations that automated CSPM dashboards miss, stopping cloud tenant takeover before attackers find them.

3.3 Cloud Configuration Review

Read-only credentialed security baseline audit across cloud services against CIS Foundations Benchmarks.
CIS CLOUD BENCHMARKS

Scope & Attack Surface

  • IAM password policies, MFA enforcement, root/global admin usage, and stale keys
  • Security groups, NACLs, public IP assignments, and WAF/CDN edge policies
  • RDS/Cloud SQL database encryption, backup retention, and public accessibility
  • Audit logging, alerting thresholds, and drift detection settings

Testing Approach

  • Read-only SecurityAuditor inspection mapped to CIS AWS/Azure/GCP Benchmarks
  • Manual validation of flagged misconfigurations to eliminate false alarms
  • Remediation guide with exact AWS CLI / Azure CLI / Terraform fixes
  • Executive compliance scorecard for audit and board reporting

Business Outcome

Rapidly eliminates configuration drift across multi-cloud environments and provides audit-ready evidence for ISO 27001 and SOC 2 compliance.

PILLAR 04

AI & Agentic Security

System-wide adversarial testing aligned with the OWASP GenAI Red Teaming Manual v1.0, OWASP LLM & Agentic Top 10 (2026), and MITRE ATLAS—testing the entire AI architecture, not just the model.

4.1 AI & Agentic Red Teaming (Models, RAG, MCP & Multi-Agent Systems)

End-to-end adversarial evaluation across Black-Box, Gray-Box, and White-Box postures—combining multi-turn campaigns with statistical Attack Success Rate (ASR) validation.
OWASP GENAI MANUAL V1.0 • MITRE ATLAS

9-Layer AI Attack Surface

  • Prompt & Guardrail Layer: Direct/indirect prompt injection, Crescendo/TAP/PAIR multi-turn jailbreaks, homoglyph/zero-width evasion, and reasoning scratchpad (<think>) boundary leaks
  • RAG, Vector & Memory Layer: Knowledge-base poisoning, embedding collision, cross-tenant vector RLS bypass, and persistent memory poisoning
  • Agentic, MCP & A2A Layer: MCP tool-description poisoning, cross-server shadowing, Non-Human Identity (NHI) delegation abuse, and task-graph manipulation
  • Supply Chain & Inference Layer: AI-BOM / CycloneDX provenance, unsafe pickle deserialization, SSRF-to-metadata, and Denial-of-Wallet token exhaustion

Scientific Testing Doctrine

  • System Over Model: Evaluates Model + System Prompt + RAG + Guardrails + Tools + Downstream Sinks together
  • Statistical Non-Determinism: Executes repeated trials (N ≥ 10–50+) reporting Attack Success Rate (ASR) with Wilson confidence intervals and bounded-null guarantees
  • Multi-Modal & Cross-Channel: Tests text, PDF metadata, OCR images, audio/ASR, and cross-channel session binding
  • Strict Blast-Radius Containment: Isolated test tenants, synthetic data, token caps, and deterministic kill switches

Executive & Engineering Value

De-risks enterprise GenAI and autonomous agent rollouts before production launch or regulatory audit (EU AI Act, NIST AI RMF / AI 600-1, ISO/IEC 42001). Delivers reproducible replay harnesses, deterministic guardrail recommendations (fail-closed AI Gateway, Presidio DLP, Dual-LLM quarantine), and Blue Team SIEM detection rules.

// STATISTICAL ASR & CONFIDENCE BOUNDS Moves beyond single-shot guesses—measuring Attack Success Rate (ASR), Wilson 95% confidence intervals, and Rule-of-Three bounded-null assurance across multi-turn campaigns.
// DETERMINISTIC BOUNDARY ENFORCEMENT Verifies that server-side RBAC, per-agent OAuth2/NHI scopes, Vector DB Row-Level Security, and output schema validators hold even if model alignment is bypassed.
// REPRODUCIBLE REPLAY & CI/CD GATES Every finding ships with frozen model parameters, full multi-turn transcripts, SHA-256 evidence hashes, and regression test packs (PyRIT, Garak, Promptfoo).

8-Phase AI Red Teaming Execution Lifecycle (OWASP GenAI Security Project Aligned)

PHASE 01
Planning & Scoping

Define Black/Gray/White-box posture, test tenants, token budgets, kill switches, and regulatory alignment (NIST AI RMF, EU AI Act, ISO 42001).

PHASE 02
Recon & AI-BOM Audit

Fingerprint model families, refusal patterns, inference endpoints, orchestration frameworks (LangChain, Semantic Kernel), and AI-BOM dependencies.

PHASE 03
Trust-Boundary Mapping

Diagram ingress/egress flows across prompts, RAG corpora, vector stores, MCP servers, agent memory, and downstream SQL/API sinks using STRIDE-AI.

PHASE 04
Exploitation & Evasion

Execute direct/indirect injections, multi-turn Crescendo/PAIR jailbreaks, multimodal OCR/audio payloads, guardrail evasion, and Denial-of-Wallet tests.

PHASE 05
Persistence & Escalation

Validate durable compromise across session resets via RAG/memory poisoning, cross-agent propagation, MCP tool hijacking, and confused-deputy privilege escalation.

PHASE 06
Post-Exploitation & Blast Radius

Map cross-tenant reach, action irreversibility, and residual AI state (orphan embeddings, derived summaries) before triggering immediate containment.

PHASE 07
Statistical Evaluation

Score findings with CVSS v4.0 + ASR confidence intervals, track pass/fail authorization oracles, and package SHA-256 verified replay scripts.

PHASE 08
Red-Blue Remediation

Deliver AI Gateway & fail-closed guardrail hardening, cascade-purge verification, SOC detection rules, and complimentary regression retesting.

OWASP GenAI Red Teaming Manual v1.0 OWASP LLM & Agentic Top 10 (2026) MITRE ATLAS (incl. AML.T0112) NIST AI RMF & AI 600-1 ISO/IEC 42001 & EU AI Act
DIRECT PRINCIPAL ENGAGEMENT

Scope an Assessment Built Around Your Business Risk

Every engagement includes manual exploit verification, CVSS v4.0 scoring, executive + engineering remediation briefings, and a complimentary verification retest. Protected by mutual NDA from day one.

Launch Scoping Assistant Download Sample Report (PDF)